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IN MEMO RI AM. 

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V '' '' 'Pulc6 et decorum est pro patria tnorr/' -. .' 


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1 foUNG OTW l S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, 

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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/inmemoriamOOsund 



Washington, D. C, April25, 1864. 
Rav. Byron Sunderland, D. D. 

Dear Sir : We respectfully request that you will furnish for publi- 
cation a copy of the eloquent and patriotic discourse on the life and 
death of Col. Dahlgren, delivered last evening. We -wish to see the 
noble daring and heroic devotion to the cause of his country, which 
characterized the brief but brilliant career of this young soldier, held 
up before the youth of our country that they may be stimulated to an 
honorable emulation of his virtues, and, if need he, to a similar sacri- 
fice of their lives. We wish to honor his memory, by publishing the 
story of his deeds and his death, that it may go down to posterity with 
the record of many other noble young men of our land, whose lives 
have honored, and whose deaths have rendered doubly sacred, the 
cause in which they fell, and will add to the reproach and shame of all 
our enemies and all who sympathize with them. 

In thus presenting this request, we believe that we express the 
general sentiment of those who listened to your discourse, and the 
loyal people of this community. 

"Very respectfully, your obedient servants, 
Schuyler Colfax, J. K. Morehead, 

D. Morris, Z. D. Oilman, 

Wm. H. Campbell, Wm. Gunton, 

O. C. Wight, Marshall Conant. 

Washington, April 26, 1864. 

To Messrs. Schuyler Colfax, 

J. K. Morehead, D. Morris, and others. 
Gentlemen : Your request of the 25th instant, so kindly expressed, 
is duly received, and in submitting to your disposal a copy of the 
discourse delivered by me, in memory of the late Colonel Dahlgren, 
permit me to add, that when our countrymen shall read the story of 
this noble young soldier, and the nation's heart shall thrill again on 
every recollection of his exploits, I pray them to remember it is not 
upon the ground of his lofty patriotism, but upon the humble hope of 
his confidence in the Redeemer of the world, that his pastor cherishes 
the conviction of his now beatified and exalted estate, in the presence 
of God and the holy angels. Ever truly, &c, 

B. SUNDERLAND. 



SERMON. 



2 Sam., iii. 34. " Thy hands were not bound, northy feet 
put into fetters. As a man falleth before wicked men, so 
fellest thou. And all the people wept again over him." 

A bkave man had fallen by assassination. 
He had not died as a felon or a coward. Xo 
earthly power could bind his hands or put his 
feet in fetters. Xone had ever been able to 
take him captive, or confine him in chains and 
prisons. He was swift as the roe of the 
mountain, with an eagle's eye, lion-hearted, 
strong in battle. His valorous deeds had 
made his name a household word in the nation. 
In an unsuspecting moment he was ensnared. 
Jealousy, fear, rage, and revenge, — the base 
quaternion of passion under the guise of 
hypocrisy, set upon him and smote him down. 
Such a death went home to the heart of the 
people ; at every thought of it they bewailed 
him aloud. The king with lamentation pro- 



nounced this eulogy over " a prince and a 
great man fallen that day in Israel." 

Time, ever fertile of humanity, rarely pro- 
duces such heroes. To-day it is given us to 
behold not only one of the latest, but also one 
of the loftiest, examples. As they did of old, 
we look upon it through blinding tears, but 
tears whose thick and grievous mist can never 
obscure its brightness. We see it through a 
storm of such mingled emotions as seldom 
sweeps the throbbing chords of human na- 
ture, or stirs the soul of a great people at 
once with pain and pride, sadness and scorn, 
anguish and indignation. We may gaze on 
till the heart is well-nigh bursting, for long 
may it be before the like of it shall rise again ! 

It is the memory of a young man who did 
not reach the end of the first year of his 
majority that we now recall. The Sabbath 
morning, April 3d, in 1842, beheld his birth. 
It was amid a scene of domestic happiness, 
in a rural home, in a lovely spot near 
Philadelphia, by the crystal Neshamony, in 
Bucks County, Pensylvania. The midnight of 



Wednesday, March 2d, in 1864, saw him 
mangled and bloody, expiring on the damp 
sod, surrounded by a cowardly, brutal, demon- 
ized foe, springing from their ambush to 
plunder and mutilate him, — there in the 
fatal thicket by the turbid Mattapony, in 
King and Queen's County, Virginia. How 
tranquilly fair his advent upon the stage of 
life — how bitterly tragic his exit ! Now as 
we look back over his single score of years, 
prophetic signals start all around him, pro- 
claiming his career, and pointing him out as 
one anointed of God to teach a lesson to 
Americans and to all mankind that can never 
be forgotten. Alas ! we did not know this, 
neither could we interpret it till he himself 
flashed it upon the nation, in one glowing 
spectacle, unfolding all. 

His very name was a presage of his char- 
acter, derived as it is from the mighty Alaric, 
king of the Visigoths, and conqueror of Rome. 
His paternal ancestry stretching back through 
a long honorable, and cultured lineage of 
Sweden, gave to him a noble blood and high 



examples of the virtues which he revered and 
emulated as a true and favored son of that 
great Scandinavian race, which has so long 
stamped its resistless impress on the historic 
fortunes of Europe. His maternal parentage, 
springing from a family of beautiful and 
accomplished women, endowed him with 
whatever is delicate and refined, gentle and 
endearing, trustful and true in the highest 
attributes of manhood. His baptism in 
infancy at the hands of a Calvanistic Pres- 
byter and Pastor, made him a child of the 
Covenant, and was the fitting symbol of that 
old Puritan spirit which has fought so many 
battles for the supremacy of God and the 
liberty of men in the earth, and which, as we 
now see, animating him, has added in his 
name but another glory to its imperishable 
scroll. His education in the family, the 
academy, and the church, were alike felicitous 
in their influence. His training, bodily and 
mentally, in the more practical and active 
spheres of social and professional life, though 
continuing through a brief period, and this 



rather in the preparatory stages, notwithstand- 
ing, contributed with no less effect to mould 
him for the part he has acted, and for the 
record which he has made immortal. 

We shall mark the proof of this more defi- 
nitely as we trace his course from the begin- 
ning, and observe his approaches to an early 
and enviable renown. His first years were 
spent in the parish of Hartsville, the place of 
his nativity, and in the city of Wilmington, 
in the State of Delaware. His father, then a 
Lieutenant in the Navy of the United States, 
was called from his retreat at Hartsville to 
embark for a cruise in the since ill-fated 
Cumberland, and the family fixed their resi- 
dence in Wilmington, where wife and children 
awaited his return. Here, for a period of two 
or three years, the child-hero, with his little 
brothers and sisters, received the priceless 
tutelage of a Christian and now sainted 
mother, amid the charming and glorious scenes 
of nature, adorned with the art and elegance 
of man, which have rendered that region so 
attractive. Under such a mentor, and Math 



8 



such surroundings, God was filling that infant 
mind with inspiration against the time of need. 
His father, returning in the November of 
1844, awaited the pleasure of his Govern- 
ment, once more surrounded by his household. 
Two years and more thus passed away, when 
again, in the January of 1847, he was ordered 
to ordnance duty in Washington, where, in 
the month of May of 1848, he established his 
present residence almost under the eaves of 
the sanctuary, and gathered his family about 
him, one of whom soon after became a mem- 
ber of this church, and all of Avhom have 
since worshipped, almost wholly with this 
congregation, the God of our fathers. 

We have seen by what providence the home 
of the lad had been fixed in Washington. 
The new scenes and events now transpiring 
around him began to awaken an interest sel- 
dom felt in a soul so young. The Capital 
presented a thousand views that told upon his 
character. Domestic, scholastic, and Chris- 
tian influences were steadily developing and 
moulding the elements of his nature. In 



addition to these, he was constantly moving in 
the High Place of the land, and daily breath- 
ing that air of Metropolitan society which, 
however tainted to the multitude, still bears 
to an earnest and upright mind the greatness 
and glory of a nation's life, filling it with the 
seeds of a pure patriotism and an exalted 
faith. Always carefully nurtured and trained 
at home, he was, from the age of six till he 
left the city in his seventeenth year, an exem- 
plary and constant attendant in this church, 
upon the instructions of the Sabbath School 
and the public services of Divine Worship. 
Here he learned those lessons of God and the 
great salvation, of Christ and the Atonement, 
of the blood of remission and justification by 
faith, of repentance and the forgiveness of sin, 
of the Holy Ghost and the regeneration of 
the human heart, of obedience and the accept- 
ance of the Gospel, of Death, Resurrection, 
and Immortality, which can never be impressed 
upon the soul without stirring it to the pro- 
foundest sense, as well of the duties and 
responsibilities, as of the sublimities and 



10 



grandeurs of existence, and which we fain 
conceive he would have been led in time 
openly to acknowledge among the children of 
God, through the sealing ordinances of his 
house. Here, too, in the sacred Analects he 
saw alike the wonder and the mystery of 
Providence, saw the theatre of life thrown 
open, saw the persons issuing upon the stage, 
saw the scheme of human fortune being dis- 
closed, saw the destiny of men and kingdoms 
rising and falling, and how amid the marvel 
and change of the shifting scenes, it swept 
upon its course, bearing to vice its final pun- 
ishment and to virtue its everlasting reward. 
And amid the confusion and uproar of mighty 
convulsions, he saw the procession of patri- 
archs and prophets, apostles, martyrs and 
heroes, the worthies of every age and of every 
name, holding on their triumphal way with 
songs, and counting not their lives dear unto 
them for the testimony of the faith once de- 
livered to the saints. And as he saw all this, 
and felt its powerful action upon his mind and 
heart, his whole being, though usually pensive 



11 



and sedate, glowed as with the flame of some 
grander revelation, and such germs were 
lodged in a congenial soil, as have since, 
through him, put forth their greatest fruit. 

But while the culture of his moral faculties 
was maintained, his intellectual powers were 
no less assiduously advanced in a primary and 
academic course. His first experience as a 
pupil was in the private but excellent school 
of the Misses Koones, where he acquired 
those rudiments of knowledge which lay the 
foundation for a higher education in the nat- 
ural sciences, mathematics, and the classics. 
In the year 1850, being the ninth of his age, 
he entered the Rittenhouse Academy of Wash- 
ington — an institution for the instruction of 
boys, of long-established reputation for its 
high moral tone and thorough intellectual 
training — for many years under the superin- 
tendence of Mr. Otis C. Wight, its present 
capable, efficient, and honored Principal. 
Here he continued, with no material interrup- 
tion, for a period of eight years, going through 
in this time the prescribed curriculum of learn- 



12 



ing, and pushing his advances far beyond most 
of his associates, into several of the depart- 
ments of collegiate study. The testimony of 
his Preceptor is as natural as it is faithful, a 
heartfelt tribute to the memory of one whose 
connection with the Academy can only add a 
lustre to its name. Involved in the common 
grief by the death of so noble an alumnus, he 
reports of him generously but tersely, that 
" he was a good boy, an excellent scholar, 
highly esteemed by his teachers and school- 
mates, prompt to every duty, earnest and self- 
reliant, making attainments rarely reached in 
an academic course, and exciting high expec- 
tations of future success." The traits of 
character which have recently burst forth like 
a halo in his conduct were thus gaining depth 
and distinctness during this passage of his 
schoolboy days. Nothing mean or narrow, 
nothing contentious or insubordinate in his 
relation with his companions and instructors 
marred the growing strength and beauty of 
his life. Sportive yet studious, affable yet 
spirited, kind yet resolute, thoughtful at times 



13 



even to sadness yet singularly intrepid, he 
scorned an unworthy motive, disdained the 
company of the vicious, and held himself en- 
tirely aloof from those frivolous habits of 
school-time annoyances to which so many 
youths are unfortunately addicted. He set a 
striking example of respect for order, sub- 
mission to law, and fidelity to the claims of 
duty. As he grew older among his fellows, 
he became at length the favorite and confidant 
of them all. To him, as by one consent, they 
deferred the trusts and honors with which 
schoolboy life — the miniature of after life — 
is charged. And he, faithful and modest in 
all, wore on his way towards the hour of his 
graduation. Meantime he was in full com- 
munion with his books. He conned the lore 
of physical science, and saw outspread before 
him the geography of the world and the man- 
ifold wonders of its varied elements and living 
tribes. He diligently threaded the mazes of 
history, and poured over the annals of the past 
to find that he belonged to a country and a 
people than whom no other have ever had a 



14 



more stupendous and glorious mission to 
accomplish. He strengthened his reason by 
grappling with the deep problems of the 
mathematics, discovering with delight those 
great principles of exact and philosophical 
science which resolve to the mind of man the 
mighty mechanism and measure of the Uni- 
verse. He plumed his imagination from 
those eagles of eloquence and song which 
the spirit of oratory and poetry has brooded 
into life. To proficiency in his own mother- 
tongue, he added a substantial acquaintance 
with the Latin language, perusing rather with 
the fervor of the enthusiast than the stolid 
perseverance of the pupil, the elegant chapters 
of Tacitus, the flowing cantos of Virgil, the 
classic commentaries of Coesar, and the 
splendid orations of Cicero. And so he drank 
at the Pierian spring, and was invigorated and 
armed for the great sequel of his life. So he 
came at last with a fair record and a solid 
scholarship to the day of adieu to his alma 
mater. It was the 17th of December, a 
wintry day in 1858, that he bade farewell to 



15 



'his friends in the Academy, and never did 
there go forth from its walls a truer heart or a 
nobler genius than when his shadow faded 
from the threshold. 

Two years and more prior, as well as subse- 
quent, to his leaving school, gave him com- 
parative recreation from in-door study, while 
a physical training in more active and varied 
engagements added to his manly form a skilled 
and athletic vigor. In his intervals of leisure 
he was often at the Navy Yard, where both on 
land and water his exuberant spirits found 
healthy and profitable exercise. In the 
November of 1857, his father was coming up 
the Potomac in the Plymouth, on his return 
from England, and the lad, eager to be the first 
to salute him, persuaded some old ordnance 
men of the Yard to go out with him in a boat, 
and they pulled down the river to Alexandria, 
where getting a tow from a schooner, he 
came alongside the Plymouth opposite Mount 
Vernon. So, in the following year, when his 
father was leaving in the same vessel for the 
West Indies, the boy, desirous of being the 



16 



last to part with him, went out with the 
Plymouth till clear of the Branch, where 
waving his last adieu from the skiff, he pulled 
back with the ordnance messenger to the 
Yard, in a glow of youthful ardor. 

In the January of 1859, he visited his rela- 
tives in the South and spent some time in the 
occupation of civil engineering in Louisiana 
and Mississippi, having the base of operation 
at Natchez where his uncle resided. It was 
here that the Mighty Disposer, who prepares 
all things beforehand, had opened to him the 
majestic seminary of Nature and made the 
tangled forest and the flowering plains of a 
region full of the great thoughts of God, in 
the profusion of their beauty and grandeur, 
to yield him a sentiment and experience that 
afterward often stood him in stead, in the 
exhausting ride, or in the dauntless charge. 
Here his sinews were toughened to an almost 
incredible endurance of physical hardship and 
fatigue, while his taste for the sturdy sports of 
the field, and his love of the art equestrian 
were fully gratified. So splendidly did he sit 



17 



his horse in the wildest and most perilous 
passages, that he might almost be said to sug- 
gest the reality of the fabled Centaurs of 
Thessaly. Little did he then think to what 
use those acquirements should come, and little 
did his friends foresee, in that Southern episode 
of his career, the designs of that brilliant life- 
plan which Providence has since revealed. 

Meanwhile, there was one other instructor 
that gave to his character the finishing touches 
of its tenderness and gravity. Affliction opens, 
indeed, a sad school for the human spirit, and 
often we dearly pay for the tuition of sorrow, — 
but out of it, if sanctified, man takes the 
golden attributes of his being. In the domes- 
tic bereavements of the family, cutting down 
as they did none more fair or lovely, the 
young lad exhibited a measure of mingled 
affection and soberness amounting to positive 
precocity. In 1844, death smote his brother 
John; in 1851, his brother Lawrence; in 
1858, his sister Lizzie, whom M^e remember 
in the radiant beauty and loveliness of her 
seventeen summers. To her he was most 
2 



1! 



fondly attached, and her death made a lasting 
impression on his mind. But the great shadow 
that fell upon the household deeper than all, 
till this deeper shadow that now lies upon 
them, was the death of his angelic mother on 
the 6th of June in 1855. What a light was 
thus quenched upon that altar ! What a 
withering stroke fell upon the hearts of the 
desolate ! In the sanctity of that private 
grief sat the petrified husband and his sob- 
bing family. By the beautiful but silent 
form that awaited a fitting sepulture, they 
lingered from morning till night and from 
night till morning. Yet among them all, 
there was none that held his place so sadly 
resolute, in a frame so calm towards the liv T 
ing, so reverent toward the dead, as this same 
wordless boy, that choked down the rising 
tumult of his memories, and, by some strange 
power of speechless fascination, upheld the 
broken-hearted, and kept the weeping in 
countenance. No caprice of childhood, no 
weariness of the body, no slumber of the eye- 
lids, could drive him for one moment from the 



19 



duties of filial piety. Yet, what must have 
been the process going on down deep in that 
young human heart, as he saw one after 
another of his fondest loves removed away, 
and trod the noiseless chambers where their 
voices should be heard no more ? Oh, then 
did he not begin to divine that time itself is 
but a pilgrimage and life but a battle, and 
man's home and heritage are in heaven ; that 
when our journey is ended and our work 
accomplished here, it is then only that we 
shall enter into everlasting felicity, then only 
that we shall regain the happy throng of 
sainted kindred and the glorious company of 
martyrs round about the throne ! Thus puri- 
fied in the furnace, his aims were exalted and 
unified. Of all the qualities that disclosed 
themselves in him, the most commanding and 
conspicuous was purity and directness of 
purpose, that unselfish and unquestioning 
devotion to a great truth which stands in the 
divine philosophy of Jesus — "If thine eye 
be evil, thy whole body shall be full of dark- 
ness ; but if thine eye be single, thy whole 



20 



body shall be full of light ! " Such a testi- 
mony did he leave in after days, when he 
came to endure the personal suffering that fell 
upon himself, and such a proof did he give 
of one absorbing end, so well contained in 
the counsel of the great but fallen Wolsey to 
his last friend : 

" Be just and fear not ; 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at he thy country's, 
Thy God's, and Truth's ! Then, if thou fallest, O, Cromwell! 
Thou fallest a blessed martyr I " 

To show the part which one has played in 
a great drama we should of right consider the 
history of its times. Yet, we may not now 
dwell on the progress of the fearful and unex- 
ampled events which issued in the present of 
struggle of the country. It must suffice to 
say that while the nation was drifting towards 
inevitable war, this young man, now approach- 
ing the close of his minority, had returned 
from the South, and we find him settled in 
Philadelphia, in the month of September of 
1860, having finally determined on the study 



21 



of the law in the office of James W. Paul, 
Esq., one of his uncles by affinity of marriage. 
Here, for a time, he gave himself to the mas- 
tery of the great principles of juridical learning 
which it is the care of that noble Profession 
to illustrate and maintain, and without which 
society can have no security, order no defense, 
and civilization no progress. In the pursuits 
of such a science, he acquired a new knowl- 
edge of the fundamental doctrines of indi- 
vidual and public welfare ; he derived a new 
sense of the value to mankind of the institu- 
tions of free government ; he was filled with 
a stronger conviction of the importance of 
preserving the republic in its purity and 
integrity ; while he drew, as it were, from 
the fountains of sacred, Roman, English, 
and American jurisprudence a fresh inspira- 
tion of the proud fealty of patriotism and a 
soul-thrilling allegiance to all rightful author- 
ity. But the occurrences that followed in 
swift succession, throwing the whole country 
into the fiercest tempest of excitement, could 
not fail to affect the neophyte of justice, then 



22 



preparing to defend by his eloquence, what 
a Higher Power intended should be hence- 
forth maintained by the sword. The argu- 
ment was closed — the discussion concluded. 
The light of half a century had been shining 
on the question, and now all that remained 
was an appeal to arms. And as the eye of 
the young loyalist looked out upon his coun- 
try's quarrel, and his ear heard from afar the 
shouting of captains and the thunder of 
battle, the Pandects of the great lawgivers 
trembled in his hands. From the September 
of 1860 to the April of 1862, an ardent soul 
was wavering between the forum and the 
field. It was evident that the ponderous 
tomes of legal philosophy had lost their hold 
upon his attention. He began to feel that 
another vocation awaited him, and already 
heard in his inmost heart the secret summons 
to its solemn mission. Throughout this inter- 
val he appeared restless and ill at ease. His 
fervid nature awoke in all its energy. He 
became a lieutenant in a company of Home 
Guards in Philadelphia, styled the " Dahl- 



23 



gren Howitzer Battery." Between that city 
and the capital he moved to and fro as one 
seeking to find his place. Like the ruddy 
stripling in the valley of Elah, he seemed too 
youthful to bo recognized among bearded men 
in the confusion and heat of the first great 
popular uprising. Now he was here, and 
now he was there ; coming to his father and 
returning to his uncle. In April, 1861, at 
Philadelphia ; in May, at the capital and 
Fort Washington, and back again to his law 
office in Philadelphia ; in July, again in 
Washington, proceeding to Fortress Monroe 
and back again to the capital. After the first 
defeat at Bull Run, going by mere sufferance 
with Parker to the defense of our lines near 
Alexandria, where, by way of experiment, he 
first trained a battery upon the enemy. In 
September, with Parker's battery at Fort 
Dahlgren ; then in the Navy-yard on the visit 
of Prince Napoleon, and back again to the 
law in Philadelphia. In April, 1862, again 
in Washington, going with the president and 
his father to Aquia ; returning to Philadel- 



24 



phia, and back again to Washington. At 
last his decision was taken, and on the 26th 
of that month he gave up the law and joined 
the Ordnance Department at the Washington 
Navy-yard under his father, then commanding. 
Thus he drew nigh to the work which 
Providence had assigned him. It needed but 
one turn more to bring him forth on his mis- 
sion. McClellan was now on the Peninsula, 
McDowell at Fredericksburg, and Banks 
enfeebled in the Shenandoah valley, when 
Jackson, the vulture of the rebellion, pounc- 
ing from his mountain home upon our scat- 
tered regiments, and driving them back upon 
Maryland, threatened Harper's Ferry and the 
northern defenses of the capital itself. The 
government hastened to strengthen the com- 
mand at the ferry, and cannon were ordered 
from the yard at Washington. But experi- 
enced officers, were wanting, Resignations 
had carried over to the enemies of the coun- 
try her most ungrateful sons. In this dilemma 
the guns were put in charge of young master 
Daniel, and the youth, yearning for action, 



25 



was sent along to aid him. On Sunday 
evening, almost at an hour's notice, they left 
with the naval battery. On Thursday follow- 
ing, he returned to procure additional supplies 
of ammunition, and to bear back some report 
of the situation. His clear statements and 
manly bearing so pleased the Secretary of 
War that he offered him the appointment of 
a captaincy on the spot. This was between 
nine and ten o'clock at night. The next 
morning, with his wonted celerity, he was on 
his way back under his new commission, 
having passed, as in a moment, from the 
civilian to the soldier, and urging forward, he 
joined Saxton at Harper's Ferry on the 31st 
of May, in 1862. A week after, he was 
acting at Winchester on the staff of Gen. 
Sigel. It was at this stirring period, while 
on the road between the ferry and Winches- 
ter, that two young officers, once associates 
and pupils of the llittenhouse Academy, each 
ignorant of the other's connection with the 
army, met in the middle of the night, one 
marching with his regiment eastward, the 



26 



other, with a body of cavalry, rapidly riding 
to the west. As they were sweeping by, 
though under cover of the darkness, one hear- 
ing the other's voice giving an order to his 
men, instantly recognized him, and the two 
former school-fellows drew nigh for a short 
greeting and a swift good-by, and each strode 
on again. They were Major Morrison and 
Captain Dahlgren, both cut down in the 
flower and prime of their young manhoood, 
both sleeping in a soldier's sepulchre, and 
both cherished in every loyal heart as the true 
sons of America, the noble scions of her 
noblest race. The captain passed on to the 
front with Sigel, when Jackson, now in his 
turn, was compelled to fall back and fly for 
safety down the mountain passes, toward the 
valley of the James. At once taking his 
stand among the foremost, he was recognized 
by all who observed him as a princely spirit, 
■ and a true knight drawing his sword in a 
righteous cause, and determined only to per- 
form his duty in the most profound oblivion of 
all peril, whether from the paucity of his 



own force, or from the overwhelming numbers 
of the foe. From that hour forward, he 
seems never to have paused or rested. He 
was ever in the van, not rashly, but piously, 
daring and devoutly doing for the love and 
fealty he bore to his native land. With a 
higher inspiration than that of the bold 
Saxon, Fitz James of Scotland, he could say : 

" Or if a path be dangerous known, 
The danger's self is lure alone." 

Or rather, to him, in the path of duty, there 
was no danger. Henceforth, it was one con- 
tinued conflict, one stern and bloody battle, 
he fighting ever where the fight grew thickest. 
And on he sped, threading the wild mountain 
passes, spurring over plain and ford, through 
field and forest, in heat and cold, in storm and 
sunshine, often hungry, weary, needing rest, 
but never daunted, never dismayed, bright and 
busy, with a keen eye and sturdy arm, sweep- 
ing like the whirlwind on the war-path, falling 
like a thunder-bolt upon the foe ! 

It is difficult to describe with satisfaction 



28 



two years of such a life, mingled as it is, with 
so many lofty characters, thrilling actions, 
shifting fortunes, and becoming a part of one 
of the most stupendous representations ever 
recorded by the muse of history. Indeed, 
much of the interior experience of our armies, 
much of that which forms the most powerful 
element of what men term romance, will never 
probably be gathered up. The thoughts, 
feelings, sensations of the individual soldier, 
moved by a thousand strong and resistless 
currents of influence, that pour in upon him 
from every quarter, the memories of home, the 
hopes of the future, the sympathies of com- 
rades, the camp, the hospital, the drum-beat, 
the march, the bivouac, the foray, the quick 
alarm, the rushing onset, the fearful concus- 
sion, the rattling musketry, the roar of artil- 
lery, the neighing of horses, " the flame and 
smoke, and shout, and groan, and sabre stroke, 
and death shots, falling thick and fast as 
lightning from a mountain cloud," the swift 
slaughter, " the garments rolled in blood," the 
equipage, the heraldry, " the pomp and cir- 



29 



cumstance," the manoeuvre and agony of war, 
the desolation following, in dreadful havoc, 
bereavements, bleeding hearts, broken spirits, 
lonely dwellings, weeds of mourning, woe and 
lamentation, filling the land with sighs and 
tears above the innumerable graves, where lie 

" Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent." 

What tongue can express all this ? what 
being but the God who made us, can fully 
comprehend it? We must be content with 
fragments, a few sketches, the meagre outlines 
of the great story which carries in it the very 
existence of a mighty nation. 

The year that elapsed from the month of 
June in 1862, to the same month in 1863, was 
a dismal period in the department of the Poto- 
mac. Reverses and disasters befell our arms 
in every direction. But through all this year 
of intense activity and supreme peril, serving 
successively on the staff of Saxton, Sigel, 
Burnside, Hooker and Meade, the young Cap- 
tain passed unharmed. While many a brave 
commander and o-allant soldier fell beside him, 



30 



it seemed as though an invisible hand had 
covered him from the iron hail through which 
he so often rode. He had done good work 
in the Mountain department, and afterwards 
at Warrenton, at Gainesville, at Manassas, at 
Centreville, at Fairfax, in the second battle of 
Bull Run, and in truth, over the whole seat of 
war in Virginia between the Potomac and the 
Rapidan. In the autumn of 1862 this region 
was overrun by prowling companies under the 
direction of guerrilla chiefs, prominent among 
whom were White and Moseby, who, with a 
thorough knowledge of the country, and aided 
by a perfidious population, in a thousand ways 
did serious injury to the Uuion cause To 
countervail these depredations, General Sigel 
summoned a number of resolute spirits, among 
whom were Koening, the Congers, and Dahl- 
gren, and giving them orders to rid the region 
of these predatory bands, sent them forth with 
their lives in their hands to this dangerous 
work. Yet nothing doubting, and fearing 
nothing, they scoured the country, scouting 
here and there, harassing the enemy, surpris- 



31 



ing his detachments, obtaining valuable infor- 
mation, making important captures, and driv- 
ing before them the dastardly marauders who 
played the part of farmers by day and felons 
by night. Foremost of these dauntless young 
officers was Ulric Dahlgren — always cool, 
always reliable, ready for the most hazardous 
attempt, yet prudent and sagacious. He was 
often selected before all others to reconnoitre 
the enemy and ascertain his numbers and posi- 
tion. He never went forth on these occasions 
without accomplishing the object designed, 
and returning crowned with a splendid suc- 
cess. Of the many brilliant exploits he thus 
performed, we can refer to but few in detail ; 
but they are such as will stand forever in our 
history, proving his valor and shedding a glory 
on the National arms. 

The dash into Fredericksburg, with sixty 
men, near daylight of the 9th of November, 
1862, after a night's hard riding through a 
driving snow-storm, encountering on the way 
almost incredible obstacles, the surprise and 
rout of the enemy, though in far superior 



32 



numbers, the desperate fighting through the 
streets, which wrung from a rebel officer com- 
manding, a reluctant tribute of admiration, as 
he declared that our youthful Captain was 
" the bravest Union officer he had ever seen ! " 
will be the theme of adulation, as long as bold 
deeds are held in remembrance. The curious 
hand of Art has already embalmed the scene, 
and given to its daring an immortality that 
will never perish. The representation of 
that heroic feat will hang upon many a wall 
throughout the dwellings of the Republic, for 
the study and the pride of coming generations. 
Several companies of Virginia cavalry were 
thus scattered by three score Union troopers, 
who, with a loss of one killed and four mis- 
sing, brought off a number of prisoners ex- 
ceeding half their whole force. 

On the 11th of December, when Burnside 
was preparing to fight the first battle of Fred- 
ericksburg, Sigcl, moving forward from Fair- 
fax with his own Division, sent Dahlgren to 
the front to communicate. The Captain, 
eager for action, obtained consent to serve for 



33 



the time on the staff of the commanding Gen- 
eral. Repeated efforts had been made to 
complete the pontoon bridge, but in vain, 
owing to the deadly fire of the enemy's marks- 
men. One of the regiments from Michigan 
volunteered to cross in boats and drive the 
rebels from their cover, which was gallantly 
performed. With the first of those that landed 
was Captain Dahlgren, and near him fell the 
Reverend Chaplain Fuller. When it was 
found that our men were unable to carry the 
works of the enemy, Burnside then dispatched 
him to Sigel, to hasten up with his Corps. 
Delivering the orders to Sigel, he started back 
at 10 o'clock that night, and the next morn- 
ing, at 5 o'clock, gave his report at headquar- 
ters, but so exhausted from the great exertion 
that he came well nigh falling from his horse. 
During the second battle of Fredericks- 
burg, or Chancellorville, one of the- most 
bloody of the war, on the 1st, 2d and 3d of 
May, in 1863, he was on the staff of General 
Hooker, and again sent to run the gauntlet of 
rebel riflemen, for the distance of twenty-five 



34 



miles, to communicate Avith Stoneman, then 
returning from his great cavalry expedition 
toward Richmond, in the rear of the rebel 
army. This most dangerous mission he per- 
formed, riding from Falmouth to Kelly's Ford 
and back again, untouched of the countless 
balls that whistled all around him. Such 
deeds of endurance and heroism could only, be 
wrought by a soul on fire with a sublime in- 
spiration, for they seem in their reality to 
eclipse the wildest legends of knighthood in 
the olden time ! 

On the 8th of June, IS 63, General Hooker, 
mistrusting the preparations of Lee for a 
grand invasion of the North, and seeking to 
check, if not wholly defeat, the movements of 
the enemy, hurled his cavalry upon the famous 
rebel, General Stuart, at Beverly Ford, where 
a scene of the most desperate and bloody 
fighting occurred known in the annals of 
modern warfare. In that fearful struggle the 
Captain, sent to act as aid to General Pleasan- 
ton, at his own request, bore a splendid part. 
His subsequent description of the battle, there 



35 



is not time to recite in full. But the peerless 
charge of that great day was made by Major 
Morris, by whose side he rode, leading the 
6th Pennsylvania, "Rush's Lancers," who cut 
their way through the brigade of General F. 
H. D. Dee, up to Stuart's headquarters, and 
within a hundred yards of their artillery I 
give the account in his own stirring words : 
" Their brigade," he says, " was drawn up in 
mass, in a beautiful field, one third of a mile 
across, woods on each side. On their side 
was the ridge on which their artillery was 
posted, and alongside of a house in which 
General Stuart had his headquarters. We 
charged in column of companies. As we 
came out of our woods they rained shell into 
us ; as we approached nearer, driving them 
like sheep before us, they threw two rounds 
of grape and canister, which killing as many 
of their men as of ours, they stopped firing 
and advanced their carbiniers. All this time 
we were dashing through them, killing and 
being killed. Some were trampled to death 
in trying to jump the ditches which inter- 



36 



vened, and falling in, were fallen upon by 
others, who did not get over. Major Morris 
commanded the regiment, and I was riding 
very near him, when, just as he was jumping 
a ditch, a dose of canister came along, and I 
saw his horse fall over him, but could not tell 
whether he was killed or not, for at the same 
moment my horse was shot in three places, 
and fell and threw me, so that I could see 
nothing for a few moments. At this moment 
the column turned to go back, finding the 
enemy had surrounded us. I saw the rear 
just passing, and about to leave me behind. 
So I gave my horse a tremendous kick, and 
got him on his legs again ; and, finding ho 
could move, I mounted and rode on after the 
rest, just escaping being taken. I got a heavy 
stroke over the arm with the back of a sabre, 
which bruised me somewhat, and nearly un- 
horsed me. This was the most brilliant fight 
of the day." 

This indeed is bloody-handed war, and the 
very story of it makes the vital current run 
cold in the veins. But if we must go to 



37 



battle ; if there could be, as there was, no 
longer any peace; if the nation had been 
driven, as it was, to this dread alternative, 
either to submit to its own disintegration 
without resistance, or to take up the sword in 
self-preservation, then the bolder the daring, 
and the hotter the strife, the sooner shall the 
mighty wager be decided. The soul in such 
a scene, and for such a cause, becomes doubly 
immortal, and men will remember with quick- 
ened pulses that fiery charge which rivals 
Balaklava and the great Six Hundred. They 
will celebrate it in songs of admiration, like 
the Covenanter's battle chant of Motherwell, 
or like Macaulay's martial hymn of the Henry 
of Navarre. 

When, in the months of July and June of 
1863, the rebel army had crossed into Mary- 
land and Pennsylvania, and were advancing 
towards Harrisburg, Captain Dahlgren, who 
was on duty at the Headquarters of the Army 
of the Potomac, solicited and obtained per- 
mission to harass, and as far as possible cut 
off the rebel communications. This, with a 



mere handful of men, he accomplished in a 
manner surpassing expectation - — among many 
exploits of the expedition capturing the de- 
spatches of the arch rebel, Davis, to his 
greatest General, and thus discovering to our 
Government the most important information 
in regard to the condition and designs of the 
enemy. After the decisive battle of Gettys- 
burg, he joined the advance of Kilpatrick's 
cavalry, and on Monday, July 6th, he partici- 
pated in a desperate charge into Hagerstown, 
then occupied by numbers of rebel soldiery. 
While skirmishing with the wily foe through 
the streets of that ancient borough, a ball 
struck the ankle of his right foot. As he fedt 
the sting, though then all unconscious of the 
severity of the wound, he remarked to a friend 
wdio rode at his side, in a style of quiet 
pleasantry peculiar to himself, "Paul, I have 
got it at last ! " For a full half-hour he yet 
remained in the saddle, until he fainted from 
loss of blood and was lifted from his horse ! 

And now a new chapter was opened in his 
life. His martial course was arrested — the 



39 



day of suffering had come ! God in mercy 
had spared him indeed from then going down 
into the dark valley, and for a while had 
turned his feet from the war path, albeit 
maimed and marred, that he might show him 
greater things than human strife, while rock- 
ing in suspense before the open portals of 
Eternity. After three days of exhausting 
torture, such as the wounded patriot only 
suffers in the close of a great battle, where 
the debris and confusion of the fight lie on 
all sides, like the wrecks in the trail of the 
avalanche, on Thursday evening, the night of 
the ninth of July, in 1863, he was brought 
home to his father's house in "Washington. 
But neither brothers nor father stood at the 
door to welcome him. All had gone forth in 
the service of the country. A younger brother 
was pursuing his course at the Naval Academy 
at Newport ; an older brother had been stand- 
ing in the trenches before Vicksburg, and was 
proudly sharing, at that very hour, in one of 
the most remarkable achievements of this 
unparalleled struggle ; while the Admiral 



40 



himself was absent in command of the fleet 
in the harbor of Charleston. In allusion to 
this fact, and exhibiting as he ever did the 
utmost sensitiveness to all that could give that 
father pain, he said to a member of the family, 
on reaching the chamber where he had been 
carried, " If my father had been here I could 
not have consented to be brought home, be- 
cause this bloody wound would have tortured 
him, and that would have been more than I 
am able to bear ! " It was in mid-summer, 
and the heat intense* the sun burning like an 
oven. During the month of agony that fol- 
lowed, which the tenderest care of kindred 
affection and the utmost diligence of medical 
skill could not alleviate, the suffering warrior 
uttered no complaint, made no sign of impa- 
tience, nor even spoke of hatred and revenge 
toward those whose foul and unnatural crimes 
have plunged the country into such distress. 
On hearing that a former acquaintance and 
schoolmate, fighting on' the rebel side, was 
wounded and a prisoner in our hands, he, in 
the magnanimity of his nature, forgetting the 



41 



feud for a moment in their common hurt, pro- 
tested his sorrow for the affliction in terms of 
impassioned pity. His spirit bore no malice. 
He was too great, too pure, too powerful for 
that. He hated not the persons, only the 
characters of conspirators, and when they 
were smitten down his sternness relaxed, and 
with relentings of compassion he only sought 
to return good for evil, and blessing for curs- 
ing on their heads. It was the hope of his 
friends and surgeons that his fair frame might 
be preserved, and the member saved on which 
the wound had fallen. For many days every 
means was used that could be devised, but 
there was no relief. The sunken eye, the 
hollo w cheek, the growing inflammation, the 
excruciating pain, all told how vain were the 
efforts to prevent his maiming. Terrible as 
was the alternative, and doubtful as was the 
issue, it came at last ; and on Tuesday, the 
21st of July, he suffered amputation, parting 
with that which was dear to him almost as life 
itself, only in the uncertain hope of saving 
life and serving once again the sacred cause 



42 



of country. The maiming of living men is 
so common a consequence of Avar, that we 
finally come to look upon it with indifference . 
but the loss and the sacrifice are none the less 
agonizing to those who endure them. In one 
view, nothing can be more repugnant to the 
instincts of our nature, than the sundering of 
limbs from the bright beauty and flowering 
manhood of the soldier who has devoted his 
living body to the havoc and waste of battle ; 
but in another view, the scars men get in such 
a service become their badges of honor and 
symbols of fame that shall live forever ! 

The sacrifice, severe as it then seemed, was 
promptly made, but the hope of recovery still 
trembled in the balance. For many days he 
hung on the brink of life, uncertain if the 
Power that made him, and still had him in 
keeping, would bid him return to the tragedy 
of time, or beckon him onward through the 
portals of Eternity, already ajar, to confront 
the vast solemnities that lie beyond. There 
are hours when the sun withdraws his blind- 
ing brightness from the face of the sky, more 



43 



fully to reveal through the shadows of the 
night, the grandeur of the universe. There 
are also hours in the darkness of adversity, 
when the soul of man discovers a more pro- 
found and awful sense of its own existence, 
and is filled with the mighty joy of those great 
thoughts of God and immortality, which bring 
to the human spirit a swift maturity. Such a 
time now came to him, once more at home, 
amid the scenes of childhood, and by-gone 
associations. Alive, as never before, to the 
gentle memories and cherished tokens of other 
days, he called back from the sea of reminis- 
cence every floating waif, and held communion 
with familiar forms and visions, that came 
before him in his prostration, and silently 
ministered a solace and a strength like the 
descending dew. Who can tell what angels 
of mercy in mingled pity and admiration then 
hovered around his bed, or if the glorified 
spirit of his departed mother were not present, 
watching over the son of her affection and 
kindling afresh in him the flame of the early 
devotion ? Certain it is that he alone, of all 



44 



who came and went in that chamber, displayed 
the calmness of a great serenity, himself un- 
moved, save when some finger pointed to the 
cause of the afflicted country, and then he 
roused into a startling energy. But otherwise 
he lay quietly in his consuming weakness, 
frequently seeking to lull the bodily "pain he 
felt, in the sound of sacred songs, hymning to 
himself the strains of younger days, that had 
often borne up his mind to heaven in the 
worship of the family. Low upon his back, 
sometimes agonized and always helpless, he 
looked hour by hour steadily upon death, his 
nature rapidly ripening in a full measure of 
resignation to the will of Heaven, and gather- 
ing an unshaken confidence in the mercy of 
the Redeemer. Nobler and better thoughts 
filled him with composure, and all the tender- 
ness of his being came gushing forth again 
like the fragrance of mingled flowers. He 
now turned with strong desire and unaffected 
satisfaction to the Volume of Inspiration, as 
to a high tower of refuge. On its great and 
loving promise he reposed his aching heart. 



45 



The fourteenth chapter of John became espe- 
cially as a pillow to his weary mind. In its 
assurance, he cast the whole substance of his 
destiny on the fatherhood of God, and daily 
grew purer and greater in the new-found fra- 
ternity of Jesus, on whose propitiation alone 
he began to take reliance for the certainty of 
his present and final salvation. So when the 
Sabbath came round, and through open win- 
dows looking towards the church, he could 
hear the lofty melodies of the sanctuary float- 
ing out upon the stillness of the consecrated 
air, he would often pause and call the family 
to listen, and there, hushed into wrapt atten- 
tion, he caught again the old refrains of Zion 
so long resounding from her glorious hills, and 
on those snatches and broken notes that drifted 
to his ear in fragments, his exulting spirit rose 
aloft toward the realms of the blessed and im- 
mortal ! On one of these Sabbath days he 
sent for me, and then, for the first time, I 
looked upon the wounded soldier. Oh, how 
beautiful, and brave, and grand he seemed, as 
in his wasted and woe-worn plight of fleshly 



46 



torture, at length I beheld him stretched out, 
and saw the signals of that fearful maiming. 
In spite of all, my tears ran down, as he lifted 
up to my salutation one sweet smile of greet- 
ing from that couch of physical agony. That 
moment is one of the living junctures of dura- 
tion that will never perish till reason shall be 
dethroned, for I felt myself in the presence of 
one far higher and holier than myself, on whom 
the mystic unction of God had passed and 
made him a prince and a king forever ! Nor 
can we doubt that there, in the hour of his 
deepest trouble, he entered into the spiritual 
rest of Christ's chosen people ; and there, in 
the gloom of his sorest darkness, the Covenant 
of his eternal salvation was accomplished. 

Just preceding the amputation, he had been 
commissioned as a colonel, but it was feared 
that the excitement of its announcement 
would be too great for his shattered nerves. 
A day or two after, however, the document 
was placed in his hand, when the eye of the 
youthful warrior again gleamed with the 
former fire, and his whole face glowed as with 



a light of transfiguration. And there he, 
who had borne in his heart so great a fealty 
to his country, once more from his prostrate 
position, lifted up his right arm and swore 
allegiance to the cause for which he had 
already freely exposed his life. It was a 
scene for the highest effort of Art. Let the 
painter limn, let the sculptor carve, the young 
hero at that instant, when the name of Jeho- 
vah sanctioned the devotion he professed, and 
which has since been sealed by his most 
precious blood ! 

At last the peril of his condition began to 
disappear, and himself and friends were per- 
mitted to indulge sanguine hopes, not only of 
his spared life, but also of his. ultimate resto- 
ration, so far as one may be that has suffered 
such a calamity. On the 18th of August, he 
was carried to Newport, where he spent a 
short time in the family of Mr. S. Abbot 
Lawrence, another uncle, whose sudden and 
lamented death cast the only shadow on his 
sojourn amid the delightful scenes of that 
famous place of resort. After this, visiting 



48 



Philadelphia and Harrisburg, and, returning 
to Washington, he sailed at length in the 
Massachusetts to join his father, admiral of 
the fleet in the harbor of Charleston, and 
arrived off the bar on the 24th of the follow- 
ing November. During these months of 
convalescence, his conversations with friends 
around him, and his correspondence with 
those at a distance, showed, at every turn, the 
proofs of a great soul far advanced beyond 
the common spirit and temper of the times, 
and gave, what we now see to have been, 
premonitions of his approaching end It is 
remarkable to contemplate the great qualities 
of the patriot and believing Christian, that so 
grew in him to a degree of perfection which 
is, in most cases, only attained through long 
years of assiduous and careful experience. 
It is impossible to recite the numerous pass- 
ages from his lips and his pen that evince a 
magnanimity and earnestness quite beyond 
the measure of his public activities, and quite 
incomprehensible to the sordid and benighted 
judgment of a selfish and mercenary age. 



49 



These developments of his character, though 
manifold in form, are essentially one in prin- 
ciple. Writing from the flag-ship before 
Charleston to a valued friend in a distant 
New England home > he says : "I stay to 
take part in the great fight ; if I die, what 
death more glorious than the death of men 
fighting for their country ? Life is only the 
vestibule to real existence, — a state of prep- 
aration for the future. Every one has some- 
thing to fulfil in this world as in a school. 
The duty must be faithfully performed here, 
or the penalty be paid hereafter." To a sug- 
gestion that some might esteem him only too 
reckless in his eagerness for the fray, he 
replies : "I never like any one to call me 
rash, for you must remember now I do none 
of those things which some call daring, with- 
out thinking well over the object to be 
attained, and if it be worth the risk involved, 
for I feel the responsibility of other lives 
more than my own. There is no excuse for 
exposing these unnecessarily. But where a 
great object requires considerable risk, of 
4 



50 



public altars, whenever God should be pleased 
to accept the sacrifice ; who fought the ene- 
mies of his country and of humanity, not 
from hatred or revenge, nor for the hope of 
earthly glory, or the desire of any temporal 
ambition or reward whatsoever, but from the 
pure and lofty sentiment of duty, of justice, 
truth and honor, to defend this heritage of 
liberty and make still more secure the welfare 
of coming countless generations ! 

We have followed him to the presence of 
that great field where secession and treason 
commenced their course of violence and blood, 
and where the first thunders of the war-cloud 
began to roll. Here, for two months, he 
shared his father's company, a witness of the 
movements of the land and naval forces of the 
Union, in one of the most protracted and des- 
perate sieges known in maritime history. He 
came thither crippled and enfeebled in body, 
and leaning upon his crutches ; but his soul 
was buoyant and strong as ever, and laughed 
out of her shattered dwelling-place on all that 
mighty spectacle ! Clear in his martial con- 



51 



ceptions, accurate in his military judgments, 
sagacious and far-seeing in all his calculations 
and intrepid in the execution of whatever 
plans had been adopted, his energy overcame 
all difficulties, and kept him in constant 
motion. He carefully pondered every posi- 
tion and weighed the probabilities of every 
manoeuvre. His eye swept round the horizon 
with all the scrutiny of a veteran commander. 
Along the low and dim shore-line of the 
waters, looking directly up the harbor, and 
standing off to the right, rise the formidable 
batteries of Sullivan's Island, lining a distance 
of two or three miles, with the guns of Moul- 
trie, Beauregard, Battery Bee, and minor 
works beyond. Directly opposite appears the 
famous Sumter, looming darkly from the 
waves, not, as heretofore, a regular, massive, 
splendid piece of masonry, floating the proud 
ensign of the stars and stripes, but crumbled 
and battle-scarred a heap of ruins, though 
sheltering a strong garrison and flouting a 
new white standard of delusion, the false 
symbol of the darkest and most guilty cause 



52 



for which men ever new to arms. To the left 
of Sumter runs a long stretch of sand-beach, 
whose low eminences, scarcely to be noticed 
but by a practiced eye — once in the pos- 
session of rebel forces, now recovered and 
resting under the old banner of the Union — 
afford, in the fortifications of Gregg, Wagner, 
and a number of others of only less dimen- 
sions, still strongly manned and bristling with 
cannon, a powerful position to the loyal troops 
in their slow but sure advance upon the fated 
town — a position won by peerless valor, and 
maintained with the life-blood of many a 
Union hero who has fallen there ! Right up, 
between Moultrie and Sumter, glitter afar the 
spires of the scornful city, mocking at her 
fate, and defying all the thunderbolts of War's 
red hand to hurl her from her impregnable 
foundations. Before, and on either side the 
narrow channel, are faintly discerned the bat- 
teries that command this seaward avenue of 
approach; on the right, Forts Ripley and 
Pinckney ; on the left, Fort Johnson ; in the 
river, long lines of huge piles, that fill it with 



53 



obstructions; the entire element fringed by 
the heavy muniments of the wharves and 
docks, and filled beneath with hidden mines 
and snares, that loaded with perils for the 
unwary and charged with death to all hostile 
comers, make the whole harbor one direful 
similitude of perdition ! At the mouth of 
this gateway of death he saw the squadron of 
his country proudly flying the flag of Admiral 
Dahlgren, his father ; the noble Ironsides, 
with her giant brood of Monitors, swimming 
the wave or riding at anchor ; and saw the 
white tents of Gilmore on the beach; and 
saw the coveted price of so many varying for- 
tunes in the distance — the birth-place of the 
rebellion — whose parricidal deed first plunged 
the nation into this long and bitter and bloody 
contest ; and saw the great guns of the Titan 
siege, and the stupendous paraphernalia of 
the most terrific bombardment of ancient or 
modern times. He saw the Southern sun rise 
and set, and the silver moon and quiet stars 
look down upon that mystery of maritime 
magnificence and of warlike array ; and num- 



54 



bering the days on those mighty chronometers 
of the world, he confidently awaited the hour 
when Providence should bring forth the splen- 
did success, to which all prior movements and 
events might be counted but the stepping- 
stones of this grand ultimate fortune. Incited 
by such enthusiasm, he ceased not to observe 
and study every detail of the great scene 
before him with unabated interest — now 
riding by day at speed along the strand to 
the most distant Union batteries — now join- 
ing, at nightfall, the scouting parties that 
scoured in all directions through every channel 
of approach, and often passing under the 
shadow of Fort Sumter, as though no traitor- 
foe were lurking there — and now tossing in 
the surf-boat, pulled by brawny arms from 
point to point, in the midst of danger, never 
shrinking, yet ever exposed. In all weathers, 
with health not fully restored, and a maimed 
limb not thoroughly healed, his bold and fear- 
less spirit, still rising above these restraints, 
eagerly watched for the first opportunity to 
strike a shivering blow at that fatal nest of 



55 



treason, and drive out forever from the soil 
they have polluted, the guilty conspirators 
against the peace of the world and the welfare 
of mankind. It was under such an impulse, 
as we have already seen, that he wrote to his 
friends in the North. But the weeks wore 
on, and the siege was unavoidably delayed. 
God had appointed him to the final sacrifice 
in a manner far more startling, and on a mis- 
sion if possible yet more sacred. Father and 
son should separate again, and the day came 
for their parting. Alas, could not the bittter 
casualties of fortune have been ordered other- 
wise ! How little did they then realize that 
when they bade " farewell," amid the roar of 
guns and the wild requiem of the disordered 
waves, they should, living, look upon one 
another's face no more on earth. On the 
morning of January 22d, in 1864, he went out 
from his father's presence for the last time, 
sailing in the Massachusetts for Philadelphia, 
and arriving in "Washington on the ensuing 
26th. Here he lingered for awhile, not yet 
by any means restored to perfect soundness, 



56 



but still waiting and burning with eager desire 
for active service in the field. To every 
suggestion that appeared designed to deter 
him from his purpose he kindly but resolutely 
refused his ear, deaf to all but that secret, 
resistless, divine call of duty which from the 
first had controlled him, and yearning only for 
an opportunity to break from his confinement, 
and be sweeping, though like an eagle wound- 
ed, yet dauntlessly onward in his flight. 
During this time he composed an article 
detailing the operations before Charleston in 
a style at once so calm, so clear, so compre- 
hensive, as to silence all cavil and dispel the 
groundless complaints of the ignorant and 
impatient. This article, which has been 
printed since his death, sounds to us now like 
a voice from the mouth of the grave. It was 
published over the signature of " Truth," 
which was ever more to him, by far something 
more, than simply a nom de plume; it was 
the substance of his character and the anima- 
ting spirit of his whole life, and never more 
conspicuously did it shine forth than in this 



57 



last complete vindication of the siege of 
Charleston — a paper freighted in every line 
with a candor, a majesty, and self-evidencing 
power which only belongs to the truth itself — 
and which, being at the same time a work of 
filial affection, as well as a patriotic and 
public defense of the national prowess, might 
well stand for the crowning work of all his 
intellectual efforts — for the last- written tes- 
timony of his hand, which alas ! he was so 
soon to seal by the offering up of life. 

Having heard that an expedition was fitting 
out for the express purpose of attempting the 
release of our dying soldiers from the prisons 
of Richmond, and well knowing that some of 
his old companions in arms, especially some 
of the Pennsylvania Lancers, with whom he 
had charged at Beverly Ford, were still pining 
and suffering more than death in that foul 
Bastile of the rebellion, and stirred by the 
tidings of their anguish, which, borne on 
every breeze, were filling the heart of the 
whole nation with heaviness, causing every 
cheek to tingle with shame, and every soul to 



58 



heave with the sighing of bitterness, he could 
no longer be restrained. Applying to his 
superiors, he was urgent to convince them 
that he could endure the work and hardship 
essentially as well as ever, and though obliged 
to be assisted into the saddle, yet once up- 
right, he gave ocular demonstrations of his 
wonderful skill and endurance, and finally 
obtained consent to go on this last great 
errand. On the 18th of February he left his 
father's house in Washington and came to the 
camp in front for the last time. On Saturday, 
February 26th, he wrote his last letter to his 
father from Stevensburg, requesting its deliv- 
ery only in case he should never return. Under 
General Kilpatrick, who commanded the ex- 
pedition, he was to have a separate detachment 
of five hundred men, to proceed by a different 
route, but rejoin the main body before Rich- 
mond, and participate in the hazardous but 
glorious attempt to enter the rebel Capital and 
open the dungeons of filth and wretchedness 
that have been so long, to many a Union mar- 
tyr, living sepulchres. All things being now 



59 



prepared, he j3arted with many a noble com- 
rade, and emerged from camp at night-fall, 
crossed the Rapidan at Ely's Ford about 10 
o'clock on Sunday evening, and proceeded on 
his way toward Spottsylvania Court House. 

To follow his movements from that time 
forward down to the midnight of the Wednes- 
day ensuing, is somewhat difficult, no reliable 
account having been furnished from any source. 
Rebel mendacity is proverbial, and we have 
necessarily but fragmentary and imperfect 
reports from our friends. We only know 
that the great object of the expedition was 
defeated, and one of the proudest and most 
promising soldiers of the Union was sacrificed 
amid utter disasters and delays, the profound 
mystery of which is yet as impenetrable as 
the fabled riddle of the Sphynx, and the pro- 
founder meaning of which God only can unfold 
to us as the leaves of the great volume of His 
providence shall be slowly overturned. We 
only know they did not meet as arranged. 
Kilpatrick, on arriving at the point of attack, 
finding the enemy posted in superior numbers, 



60 



and unable to account for the delay of Dahl- 
gren to come up in time, was obliged to with- 
draw his troops, and passing down the Pen- 
insula towards Williamsburg, find a way of 
safety out to the Union lines. Meanwhile, it 
is alleged that the advance column, under the 
noble young Colonel, was betrayed and misled 
far out of his intended route, through either 
the stupidity or treachery of a negro guide, 
and the misfortune, which thus increased the 
distance, wasted their strength, and prolonged 
the time, was not discovered till too late for 
an effectual remedy. Passing through Spott- 
sylvania in the twilight of the Monday morn- 
ing, they halted for rest and refreshment. 
Then it was that the young commander rode 
along the line of the column, on most of whom 
his appearance for the first time, made the 
deepest impression ; for they saw in his quiet, 
pleasant bearing, the man whose exploits in 
many a stern and bloody fight, had made his 
name a watchword in the army. Not yet in 
full strength from the mutilation of a former 
contest, but looking on his charger, as he 



6i 



always did, the gallant soldier, expressions of 
satisfaction were heard in the ranks by the 
subordinate officers. On Monday afternoon 
the command reached Frederickshall Station, 
where breaking the communications of the 
rebel army and capturing a number of officers, 
it passed on rapidly southward, halting under 
the cover of the night and in a heavy storm 
of rain, for such fare as the bivouac hastily 
affords. The Colonel was observed by an offi- 
cer, who assisted him to alight, to be drenched 
with rain, but unwearied in spirit, and cheer- 
ful as the most sanguine among them. On 
Tuesday by day dawn, he was again in saddle, 
and before mid-day reached the James river, 
some distance below Goochland. Passing 
down several miles with the current, an at- 
tempt was made to cross to the southern bank, 
but there was not found a single vestige of a 
ford at the spot which the special guide had 
pointed out. And here it was that suspicion 
of foul play first flashed upon the misguided 
column, now far from any succor of friends, 
in an enemy's country, filled with scouts and 



62 



skirmishers, thoroughly roused, and tracking 
and seeking to waylay them at every step. 
Nothing now remained but in disappointment 
to move on, and if possible, rejoin Kilpatrick, 
or taking the hazard of the long gauntlet of 
sixty miles, to cut his way out through snares 
and secret gins and the fell ambush of cow- 
ardly but savage foes ! So keeping the north 
bank, they rode toward Richmond, and only 
halted about sunset, when the bastions of the 
city were already in sight. During this pause 
he was noticed to be surveying the horizon 
with gaze intent, no doubt striving to descry 
from afar some signal of Kilpatrick. It was, 
however, in vain, and he now knew that he 
was alone with his chosen five hundred, within 
rifle-shot of the rebel Capital. When the 
pale night had spread her sheltering mantle 
above them, he moved cautiously forward, and 
was soon brought in contact with the sharp- 
shooters of the rebel advance, who at once 
began a heavy fire upon the sturdy column. 
The men were promptly formed for the charge, 
and in that perilous moment the spirit of their 



63 



glorious commander shone forth in all its 
splendor. So calmly, so cheerfully, amid the 
leaden hail, rode he along the lines, dispensing 
counsel and courage to his troops, when at his 
word, they dashed on like a bolt falling from 
the sky, scattering the enemy on all sides and 
driving them into their works. But what 
were five hundred men so nigh to the rebel 
lair ? Oh, that an army could have followed 
these bold outriders of the Union cause, and 
supported them at that hour in their superb 
attempt ! But this was not to be, and so the 
swift five hundred, tarrying no longer, at full 
speed coursed down the road in plain view of 
the accursed city ; then diverging northward, 
took their way to the streams across whose 
fords they looked for safety from the pursuit 
of the infuriated foe. The lowering sky now 
again broke in a cold and heavy rain, and the 
chill night stiffened the clothes of the men; 
yet on they rode, now strangely and sadly to 
be separated, the Colonel with a small party 
taking one fork at the cross-roads, and the 
main portion of his command another, unable 



G4 



to distinguish in the thick darkness, each 
other's course or company. At length the 
morning opened on that decimated and de- 
voted band of out- worn patriots, and the sun 
ascended then alas ! upon eyes that should 
never behold him rise again. The rain had 
once more ceased, and in the gray and misty 
twilight, the hunger-stricken party of less 
than one hundred men, crossed over the lonely 
ferry of the sinister Pamunkey, and halted for 
a meagre breakfast from their all too scanty 
stores. This done, they rode on rapidly, but 
without confusion, as if moving toward instead 
of from an array of battle ; no man more res- 
olute or full of hope than the untiring and 
gallant commander, on whose voice his men 
now hung for the very breath of their inspira- 
tion, while he, enduring more fatigue and 
hardship than any of his soldiers, was still 
and ever riding at their head. It was past 
noon when they reached the Mattapony, where 
finding the ferry-boat too small, the horses 
were compelled to swim to the other side. 
Here, by the sluggish stream, on that forest 



65 



shore, a vision breaks before us which we 
pause for a moment to survey with a feeling 
of mingled wonder and scorn. Quietly and 
in order the crossing proceeds, while over the 
steep and wooded bank behind them a few 
pickets are posted to guard against surprise. 
At the water's edge stands the fearless Dahl- 
gren, calmly but attentively noting the slow 
passage of the river by his weary men. In 
an instant more the report of rifles is heard 
from the hill ; the rebels are firing from their 
hiding places upon our picket-guard, who, 
sighting their guns through the brambles, 
return the deadly salute. Presently, though 
in total ignorance of the force that may rush 
down upon him for his capture or his death, 
the clear, ringing voice of the young chieftain 
calls away the last man from the ridges above, 
to cross over the ferry before him, while he is 
left alone on the hither side — alone with the 
enemy, a wounded officer, a single soldier, a 
solitary man, unhorsed, and standing upheld 
by his crutches, but without one helping hand 
from any earthly quarter. And now the rebel 
5 



66 



bullets begin to whistle around him ! Yet 
with a proud look of ineffable contempt, he 
coolly smiles at the hidden dastards, and ex- 
claiming aloud to draw them from their con- 
cealment that he may face them openly, he 
then at a venture discharges his revolver in 
defiance through the thicket ! But not a man 
dare meet him in the open day ! Here again 
is a subject for the poet's fancy, or the paint- 
er's pencil. Here is a contrast of the long 
challenged Northern cowardice and the long 
vaunted Southern chivalry, to make the loyal 
heart of the nation beat again with unmiti- 
gated scorn for the craven soul of the one and 
with unmingled admiration for the dauntless 
spirit of the other. Not one of the skulking 
savages might venture to a personal rencoun- 
ter with the marred hero of many an open, 
honorable combat. And if this thrilling scene 
shall be ever preserved in the breathing visions 
of the canvas, or in the thrilling cadence of 
martial song, it shall present a single figure, 
the brave young loyalist, exposed upon the 
shore of the turbid stream, away in the swamps 



67 



of the Peninsula, daring and defying the brutal 
demons of the jungle, with an air of moral 
sublimity that makes us forget, for the mo- 
ment, the perfidy and meanness which have 
furnished the occasion of its superb exhibi- 
tion ! 

At length the friendly ferry-boat returned, 
and the colonel once more joined his com- 
mand in safety. They were soon, however, 
upon a wooded road, thick with rebel rifle- 
men and liable to be shot down at any 
moment. Coming, late in the day, to the 
passage of a brick church, as if to render the 
sacrilege more complete, this now exhausted 
company of less than seventy men were heav- 
ily fired upon from the bushes in the vicinage 
of the temple of God ! Returning the fire 
and spurring onward, with some loss of life, 
they rode out of present danger, but, alas ! 
only for a little space. In the gathering dark- 
ness of that ever to be lamented night, they 
crossed a small bridge and halted by the road- 
side, for a little food and rest to the wearied 
men and jaded horses. For, having been 



68 



three days and nights almost in constant 
motion, they were now constrained to yield to 
the claims of nature already sorely overtaxed. 
In that brief pause, the gallant leader of this 
noble band laid down for relief on the rude 
couch which his attendant had hastily extem- 
porized by drawing together a few rails on 
the ground, and casting over them a soldier's 
blanket. Here he soon fell asleep, for body 
and mind both needed repose. Before the 
next morning light should break, the mother 
Earth should receive his mortal part forever ; 
yet this last sleep of weary nature was as 
placid, and almost as profound, as that which 
knows no waking until the resurrection 
morn ! A short half hour speeds on, and the 
young warrior wakes to action for the last 
last time among men. The muffled note of 
preparation is all that greets the ear; the 
men are again in saddle, ready to follow their 
fearless, almost untiring leader, now at his 
post in the front where he never failed to be. 
The little band arc riding in the deep solitude 
of the forest, and under the gloom f the 



69 



midnight. And now the heart almost ceases to 
beat, as we think of the profound awful mys- 
tery of that last fatal movement. Is that 
dreary mile, through which a brave young 
chieftain is carefully threading his way, bring- 
ing on his followers with an earnest prayer 
for their safety, — Oh, Merciful God ! is that 
the closing distance of his own earthly pil- 
grimage ? Yes, that is the terminus ; then 
and there must drop the severed web, the 
strange, almost dream-like, tragic end of a 
glorious life ! First, a low rustle on the wind ; 
then the quick challenge ; and, in an instant, 
the flash, the rattle of volleying guns that all 
too wofully swept down the narrow pike with 
the first bitter breath of wasting and desola- 
tion that broke the silence of the desert night. 
Among the bodies that rolled down together 
in the dust and darkness, were Ulric Dahl- 
gren and his high-mettled horse, all pierced 
and shattered with the leaden hail that made 
them both one heap of swift mortality. And 
so, expiring from many bloody wounds, a 
spirit deathless in renown and of existence 



70 



immortal, passed out from its fleshly taberna- 
through those fatal rents, mounting on high 
and returning forever to the God who gave it ! 
The column, no longer, in the darkness, 
hearing the voice of their commander, many 
being already unhorsed and wounded, fell back 
and waited only to find themselves surrounded 
and captured, a few barely escaping to tell the 
sorrowful tale of this great disaster. The 
warfare of the young hero was accomplished, 
and there might his form have reposed in 
safety — 

"Who, leaving in battle no blot on his name, 
Looked proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame I " 

had it not been for the foul miscreants, who 
make war alike upon the living and the dead. 
After this atrocious murder, then the fiendish 
cruelty of the cowardly ruffians broke forth 
upon the lifeless body, in such base and mer- 
ciless indignities as curdle the blood to think 
of. We shall not dwell upon the sickening 
details of horror ! 

And who were the men that conferred upon 



71 



themselves this diabolical distinction and pre- 
eminence of depravity ? When the main bodj r 
of the expedition, nnder Kilpatrick, passed 
through the counties of Henrico and New 
Kent, Generals Hampden and Bradley John- 
son had fallen upon their rear at Atlee's and 
Tunstall's stations with something like a show*" 
of genuine courage. But it was reserved for 
Captain Magruder and Lieutenant Pollard, 
with some of the 5th and 9th Virginia cav- 
alry, the same that were driven panic-stricken 
from the streets of Fredericksburg the year 
before, now largely increased by the Home 
Guard, under the command of the Rev. Cap- 
tain Bagby — all like jackalls seeking by 
night the graves of the dead — to distinguish 
their military career, not by meeting the 
stern soldier in open day and face to face in 
honorable strife, but by secreting themselves 
in a roadside-thicket, under cover of the 
night, and there awaiting the coming of the 
troops they durst not fight on equal and open 
terms ! This is the warfare of the assassin 
and the murderer, — a warfare whose barba- 



72 



rism is equalled only by its meanness, and 
whose savage cruelties are sought to be con- 
cealed by its more audacious calumnies ! We 
are told that, having been stripped and muti- 
lated, the body was thrown over into a field 
to prevent it from being torn in pieces by the 
swine-herd ; then, that it was hastily plunged 
into a pit dug for it at a cross-roads ; then, 
that it was disinterred and taken to Richmond, 
and after lying some time at the York river 
depot, in a pine box covered with a confederate 
blanket, exposed to the gaze of a maudlin 
multitude, it was spirited away and hurried 
no one knows, or is to know where, save 
those who covered it ! Such are the issues of 
the heathen oracles of the Richmond press. 
Nor are the pretended pledges of the Rich- 
mond Junto, for the safe delivery of the 
remains of the murdered soldier, more adapted 
to inspire our confidence or regard. With 
the agonized father, four times descending the 
Potomac that he might gain the last poor 
privilege of giving to his gallant boy the 
fitting rites of sepulture, have they kept a 



73 



worse than Punic faith. This remorseless 
trifling with the holiest affections of human 
nature is the common feature of barbarous 
and semi-civilized communities. Yet they 
shall he taught, as they have been, that no 
craven prayer, wrung from a sorrowing family, 
shall repeatedly implore from those, whose 
hands are red with the blood of the slain, one 
sweet exercise of compassion. It is not in 
such a spirit that brave and loyal men shall 
meet the guilty and black-hearted enemies of 
their country. They will stand on the plain 
instincts of man's better nature, and when 
once deceived by the false and lying promises 
of perjured traitors, they will turn with scorn 
from the ineffable turpitude, and patiently 
await that hour of reparation which will 
sooner or later inevitably come ! 

The expedition ended as we have seen. 
But it was conceived and undertaken with a 
purpose as pure and lofty as ever inspired the 
heart of man to deeds of daring. In the 
comments of the rebel journals upon this bold 
attempt to storm their wretched capital, we 



74 



may perceive the reflection of the popular 
feeling and opinion. The brutality of the 
assassin is only equalled by the scurrility of 
the censor ; the shameful murder is well nigh 
transcended by the unparalleled falsehoods by 
which they seek to blacken the fair fame of 
as noble a soldier, as sweet a gentleman as 
ever rode into battle. Having first, like 
thieves in the night, most foully dispatched 
him, and vented their brutal instincts upon 
his breathless corpse, they have sought to 
shield this more than savage outrage from the 
execration of mankind by the still greater 
cruelty of stabbing his reputation and as- 
persing his fair name with the imputations of 
lies and fabrications the most atrocious and 
unreasonable that were ever brewed in a 
human brain, or proclaimed by beings in the 
form of men ! 

With what unfeigned sorrow a loyal people, 
from the eastern to the western seas, have 
read those announcements of the fate of one 
of the noblest characters that has adorned 
this or any other country, let the abundant 



75 



and almost overwhelming outburst of grief 
and indignation, to this hour, and in all time 
as it will be, bear witness. No form of ex- 
pression has been withheld that could give 
utterance to the horror which men feel at the 
enormities committed on the person of this 
brave son of the Republic, or that could ren- 
der more emphatic and universal the public 
sympathy for his friends in their affliction, and 
the undying admiration of his own great 
memory! In the name, then, of the country 
whose cause he served, and of the Christianity 
whose spirit he cherished, and of the history 
whose record he has rendered illustrious, we 
undertake to deny, and we do deny, in part 
and in whole, every charge made upon Ulric 
Dahlgren that can by possibility disparage 
him, either as a soldier or a man. It is 
morally incapable of belief that, in the expe- 
dition which cost him his life, he should have 
entertained any purpose but such as fully 
comports with the legitimate objects of civil- 
ized warfare, and of an open, honorable and 
intrepid foeman. Endowed as he was by 



76 



nature, trained as he had been by education, 
inspired as he undoubtedly seemed by grace, 
his whole being would have revolted at any 
act of unnecessary violence or severity. In 
the performance of his duty he would have 
smitten down, to the extent of his power, 
whatever, or whoever should have stood in a 
position of resistance ; but his duty once per- 
formed, the stern will, unbending in the 
struggle, would have relaxed into the gentle- 
ness and the generosity of his native kindness. 
Justice and not charity constrains us to this 
conclusion. Providence, in one of its deepest 
mysteries, has, strangely as to us it seems, 
permitted him to fall at a time, in a place, and 
under conditions which, now that he may no 
longer speak or act in vindication of himself, 
give all the advantage of posthumous testi- 
mony into the hands of his calumniators. 
Having put away and withheld the proof of 
the mutilation of his person, they industri- 
ously frame, impute, publish and imprint a 
series of abominable misrepresentations, which 
only men, frantic with affright and given over 



to judicial blindness and infatuation, could 
summon the hardihood to pretend. Xow it is 
one of the prominent tokens of the beneficent 
design of the creation that falsehood and delu- 
sion shall never be consistent with, but ever- 
more shall contradict themselves. The Rich- 
mond authors say these papers were found on 
his person* 1 ; yet, not till after he was dead does 
any one pretend that they were ever seen or 
heard of, or known to be in existence. Xot 
till he has passed forever away from the theatre 
of life's great action, and been given over into 
the hands of the unscrupulous and merciless 
representatives of the most diabolical and 
flagitious conspiracy the world has ever seen, 

* Col. Dahigkes's Orders. — It is now proved beyond 
a doubt that the pretended photolithograph of Colonel 
Dahlgren's orders, published in London, was a forgery. 
It will be remembered that the name of Colonel Dahlgren 
was mis-spelt in the pretended copy. The Xew York 
Commercial Advertiser now announces that the " orders'' 
are neither written nor signed in his handwriting, although 
pretending to be signed with his name. Thus this impudent 
attempt to blacken the character of a gallant young officer 
is exposed, and the dishonor rests upon those who inflicted 
indignities upon his lifeless body, and then committed 
forgery to help out their own falsehoods as to his conduct. 



78 



is it found out that such documents could be 
produced. While he was yet alive, neither 
friend nor foe ever suspected that any improper 
purpose was entertained by him. His whole 
military character and career belie it, and 
more especially his treatment of prisoners 
captured in this very expedition, themselves 
detailing in the ears of rebels his generous 
bearing toward them. Besides this, the in- 
ternal evidence of these pretended papers, 
when judged in contrast with what he was 
known to have composed and written, shows 
that the same mind could not have been the 
author of both. Yet what if it were all true, 
as is so loudly asserted ? With what face can 
men whose daily outrage on the world might 
put to shame a very demon's cheek, stand up 
and mock the time with this hypocrisy of 
holy horror ? 

Yet again, let us consider what was the 
object, and what the inspiration of this expe- 
dition, that we may bear it forever in mind ? 
To answer this, it must be recalled, even 



79 



though it be to our mortification and reproach, 
that for three long years of bloody and deso- 
lating war, the rebel nest has been made — 
the rebel capital has been fortified within the 
distance of one hundred miles from the very 
seat of the supreme national government; 
that, between this point and that, vast armies 
have been swallowed up, until the whole 
ground would seem to have drunk of the 
bloodshed, and every acre to hold a soldier's 
grave ; that our Government, with all its bur- 
dens and with all its efforts, has been till now 
compelled to stand by and look helplessly on 
this brazen defiance and bloody resistance, 
scarcely, in appearance, nearer the reduction 
of Richmond to-day than when the war be- 
gan. We must remember how often we have 
been disappointed and humiliated in our hopes, 
and how long our hearts have ached and our 
faces flushed with shame, as we heard the 
repeated tidings and saw the repeated proofs 
of the sufferings of our brave men in those 
dens of Southern insult and outrage, starva- 
tion, insanity and death ! We must remember 



80 



how often we have prayed that God would 
bestow some means for their deliverance, 
would send some angel of mercy to open their 
prison doors and to set the captive free ! Could, 
then, an aim like this, a motive so inspiring, 
though fraught with fearful hazards, be re- 
garded by such a mind as his with apathy and 
indifference ? Nay, but it was the bugle-note 
that rent from him the last restrictions of con- 
valescing prudence, and filled and fired his 
soul with one great sublimity of purpose. 
He thought of the pining prisoners, once his 
brave comrades. He thought "if we fail, we 
can die but once ; if we succeed, success will 
be glorious ; — I go, and God be with us in 
the hour of need ! " I suppose this only 
absorbed his soul ; I suppose the rebel Davis, 
with all his official train, was scarcely once 
entertained in that magnificent mind, beside 
the images of the wan and wasted heroes he 
would liberate from their protracted misery, 
and restore with gladness to freedom, friends, 
and country ! 
• Oh, then, let the traitors rail on, and seek 



81 

to fire the Southern heart again by a legend 
of lying fiction connected with his name. 
Yea, let them hide from the eyes of men the 
resting-place of the noble dead ; but let us 
tell them, here and now, that by our faith in 
the justice and firm covenant of God, we hold 
the spot where he slumbers, if it be within 
the precincts of the rebel city, to be the most 
sacred its polluted site has ever owned ; and 
in the day of vengeance, when that impious 
town shall be plowed as a field, as surely it 
shall be, if yet there remains one single 
agency of Providence that ministers to the 
right — in that day of vengeance, the bones 
of this noble young martyr may be there, 
alone to plead for a clemency even toward 
the soil, which the wicked usurpers of its 
government have so proudly and heartlessly 
refused to others ! 

But let the loyalist who values probity and 
hates injustice, let him who can prize the mo- 
tive of a brave, true spirit, yearning for noble 
deeds, and counting not even his own life 
dear, that he may bring to others a longed- 
5 



82 



for deliverance — let all such remember how 
the gallant soldier whose fate we here bewail, 
freely gave up his life, that he might rescue 
others from a worse than sudden death. And 
let those especially for whom he suffered, 
though in vain, and all their host of friends, 
do honor to his memory! Let the nation 
cherish him ; let his monument be reared, and 
his example proclaimed; for indeed, if God 
permit, it shall live in the air of the moun- 
tains, in the fragrance of our floral plains, in 
the murmurs of our waters, in the songs of 
the woodland, in the dirge of the ocean, yea 
in the light of every morning and the radiance 
of every sunset. It shall live more deeply 
and forever in the heart of the coming genera- 
tions, in the heart of the great people — the 
thrilling, glorious memory of Ulric Dahlgren, 
a boy and yet a man, a child and yet a mar- 
tyr, a ward and yet a hero, a patriot and a 
soldier, an example of singular purity, though 
of the fallen race ; teaching the value of obe- 
dience to law, teaching the beauty of filial 
piety, teaching the grandeur of a great inspi- 



83 



ration, teaching the costliness of a great 
sacrifice, teaching the support of a religious 
faith, conscious of right, regardless of oppos- 
ing numbers ; giving a new sense of human 
valor, composing a purer version of lofty fealty 
to Government, living a century before his 
age — a trusty and brilliant type of the young 
manhood that Christian civilization is pro- 
ducing and shall produce in America, when 
the flames of civil war shall have consumed 
the dross and refined the gold of the human 
generations that are gathered and growing 
here ! Oh, thou brave, unselfish, sweet- 
tongued, lion-hearted, splendid, immortal 
spirit ! How dost thou rise before us * to 
reprove our baser passions, expose our apa- 
thy, and strip from us every sinister design ! 
How dost thou project, before all the millions 
of America, thy radiant example of loyalty to 
country, and unwavering trust in God and in 
His Christ, the only Saviour of mankind. 

Surely we must feel, and we do feel the 
superiority and exaltation of such a being. 
We shall cherish forever the memory of his 



84 



life, and we shall pray that his mantle, like 
that of the olden prophet, may fall, but fall 
upon all the people of the land ; that his spirit 
may live in the young men and maidens, and 
that we may pay our tribute to his Father and 
ours for such a vision of human nature as his 
life has been, while with pious and reverential 
awe we gaze on the bright soul that, finding 
another Jordan in the solemn scene of his 
departure, ascends forever into heaven in 
" the chariot of Israel and with the horsemen 
thereof ! " Amen. 



85 



At a special meeting of the Dahlgren Howitzer 
Battery, Captain E. Spencer Miller commanding, 
held at the Armory, No. 808 Market street on 
Thursday, the 17th inst., the following resolutions 
were read, and, on motion, unanimously adopted, 
viz. : — 

Whereas, our late Lieutenant, TJlric Dahlgren, 
after severing his connection with us, and entering 
the active service of his country, showed on every 
occasion those high qualities of courage, coolness, 
and warm patriotism which we so well knew and 
appreciated ; and after gaining promotion with a 
rapidity which proved his extraordinary merit, lately 
lost his life whilst gallantly leading his men up to 
the very gates of Richmond, to release our fellow- 
citizens from rebel prisons ; 

Resolved, That in his death the country has lost 
one of its most promising officers, and most daring 
and self-denying patriots. 

Resolved, That not in the hope of adding to the 
honor of one whose glory is now part of the history 
and treasure of his country, and whose praises are 
on every tongue, but to impress upon ourselves his 
bright example, we make this record to his memory. 

Resolved, That as Colonel TJlric Dahlgren had from 
his parentage ties to this city and this city to him, 
our fellow-citizens should not be unmindful of his 



M 



memory, but should raise a monument to him more 
permanent than mere expressions of admiration and 
respect. 

Resolved, That we will wear a badge of mourning 
for six months, and cause these resolutions to be 
published, and a copy thereof to be sent to the father 
of the deceased. 

Sergeant CHAS. WILLING HARE, 

Chairman pro tern. 
Attest — Sergeant E. S. Campbell, 

Secretary pro tern. 



87 



Lines suggested by the death of one of the bravest men this 
war has brought into the service — 

COLONEL ULRIC DAHLGREN. 

Ulkic Dahlgken, in the story 

Of thy country's grief and wrong, 

Thine shall stand a name of glory, 
Bright in history and song. 

Since bold treason sent its thunder 

Over Charleston's placid bay, 
"While the world looked on in wonder 

At the madness of the day. 

Oh ! how many lives have perished — 
Gone, like bubbles on the brine — 

Lives by warm affection cherished — 
None, young hero, more than thine. 

Thou, scarce launched on life's great ocean, 
Courage thine both rare and grand, 

Thy young heart's supreme devotion 
To thy dear, thy native land. 

Joined to make all patriots love thee, 
Joined to give thee station, power — 

In th' embattled field to prove thee 
Worthy, 'mid the wildest hour. 



88 



Ulric Dahlgren, thou hast given 
Thy blood in freedom's Cciuse to flow; 

God will bless thee up in heaven, 
Good men bless thee here below. 

Traitors hate thee — the glory 

Of such hatred to the true ! 
Traitor, scoundrel, villain, tory, 

Ever will hate such as you. 

Sleep, young hero ; thou, in dying, 
Fellest in the cause of right ; 

And thy memory, time defying, 
Shall be ever, ever bright. 



89 



ULRIC DAHLGREN. 

CHAS. HENRY BROCK. 

Quench the burning indignation, 

Check the rising tear ; 
Be his sepulchre the nation, 

And the land his bier ! 

Hellish vengeance hath consigned him, 

To a grave unknown : 
Freedom's angel hath enshrined him, 

By her altar stone. 

Curse and mangle, O ye traitors ! 

"What is left of him : 
Crush and sever, ruthless haters ! 

Every youthful limb. 

Hide him in your dark morasses, 

That no verdant sod 
E'er may tell, to him who passes, 

Where he rests Avith God. 

But ye cannot crush the story 

Of his hero-worth, 
Nor debase his wealth of glory 

With ignoble earth. 



90 

And ye cannot hide the gleaming 

Of his hero-name, 
For it kindles Avith each beaming 

Of his country's fame ! 

Spirit of the son immortal ! 

Wailings of the sire ! 
Peace, for in your nation's portal 

Hangs the funeral lyre ; 

Breathing there the mighty chorus 
Of the young and brave, 

How he died, awhile before us, 
Liberty to save ! 

Oh ! be this the consolation, 
This the mourner's pride, 

That the story tires the nation, 
How he lived and died ! 

Be the sepulchre that holds him, 

Hidden as it may : 
Tis his country that enfolds him 

"With her native clay ! 

Philadelphia, March, 1864. 



91 



ULRIC DAHLGREN. 

:-- m ~, rm^zmmy 

When areled by the fond and :'; 

i " " - : -__:. and pale.* 
" ■'. ha : .:. gentle air, 
- - wMdb e : wards quail ; 
So radiant in the grasp of pain, 
S : meek with valor's crown, 
Our swelling hearts : said not : . i 

! : ang renown. 
Tenth's artless meer with manhood'; thought 

In word and glance o'erflow, 
-- ; -' thy — e had newly camrht 

Fhy blood's ancestral glow; 
He spirit of old Sweden's Vi-ng 
hi e h mien and accent bore, 
In ev;:; palse-i Est seemed :: spring 

intrepid as of yore. 
Z: nerved thy arm in wild foxav, 
And round thy martyi s bed, 
"Where lore and mm ~__". watch and pray, 
Amrelic r-'Stiem-E shed. 



* IVming the TonDg ierc 'i : ■ I suHcxi^K ifta Me 



92 

Vain the base ambush from, whose lair 

The murderer's bullet came, 
And vain the slander that would tear 

The glory from thy name : 
O , Ulric, brutal hate will pine 

All impotent to sear 
The laurels that thy country's shrine 

Forever shall endear. 



93 



When the battle is fought and the victory won, 
Life's trials are ended and life's duties done. 
Then Jesus our Saviour will welcome us home, 
No more in this desert of sin we shall roam. 



Safe, safe at home, safe, safe at home, 
No more to roam, no more to roam, 
Safe, safe at home, safe, safe at home, 
No more, no more to roam. 



The most youthful soldier will then have a share 
In heavenly mansions prepared for us there ; 
The song of redemption from mortals shall swell, 
As of Jesus to wondering angels they tell. 
Cho.— Safe, safe at home, &c. 



Though taken from earth in life's earliest morn, 
The crown of our Saf iour we'll ever adorn ; 
More bright than the stars will thy ransomed ones shine, 
For the radiance, dear Saviour, 's eternally thine. 
Cno. — Safe, safe at home, &c. 



Servant of God, well done ! 

Go forth from earth's employ, 
The battle fought, the victory won, 

Enter thy Master's joy. 



At midnight came the cry, 
" To meet thy Grod prepare I " 

He woke — and caught his captain's eye, 
Still strong in faith and prayer. 



Soldier of Christ, well done, 
Praise be tliy new employ ; 

And while eternal ages run, 
Kest in thy Saviour's joy. 



94 



PRAYER FOR OUR COUNTRY. 

O Almighty God, King of kings, and Lord of lords, 
the blessed and only Potentate, who dost what thou 
wilt in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabit- 
ants of earth, putting down one and setting up an- 
other, we acknowledge the justness of those visita- 
tions which thou hast seen fit to inflict upon us. 
Thou hast uplifted thy arm in anger, and because of 
our iniquities, thou art wrathfully displeased at us. 
We desire to bow down before thee, and to confess 
the many and great offences whereby we have each 
contributed to increase the number of those national 
offences for which thou hast entered into judgment 
with us. In many things hav.e we offended thee ; in 
pride, in impenitence, in hardness of heart, in pro- 
faning thy holy name and day, in contempt of thy 
word and the means of grace, in forgetfulness of 
thee, and in disobedience to the commands of thy 
dear Son. 

But though we have sinned against thee, yet we 
desire to fall into thy hands, for thy mercies are 
great ; and let us not fall into the hands of men. 
Though thou hast been angry with us, let thy anger 
be turned away, and suffer not thy whole displeasure 
to arise. Remove from us the judgments which we 
feel, or fear ; and so sanctify to us the dispensations 
of thy providence, that we may profit by our present 
sufferings, and receive them as the wise corrections 
of thy fatherly hand, which chastens all whom thou 
lovest, and scourgeth all whom thou receivest. So 
search and try us, that we may all learn by thy godly 
discipline to examine ourselves to see wherein we 
have offended. Send forth throughout the land a 



95 



universal spirit of repentance, that we may return 
every man from his evil ways, and may amend every 
man his doings. Increase in us that righteousness 
which exalteth a nation ; and save us from that sin 
which is the reproach of any people. And may we 
never, in the pride of our hearts, forget that blessed 
only is that nation whose God is the Lord, and 
whose hope the Lord is. 

And while we truly repent us of our sins, may it 
please thee to repent of the evil which thou mayest 
have pronounced against us. Turn away from us 
the dreadful scourge wherewith thou hast justly 
visited us ; have mercy on our enemies and turn 
their hearts, and let wars and fightings forever cease. 

Save and defend thy servant, the President of the 
United States, and so dispose and govern his heart, 
that in all his thoughts, words, and works, he may 
ever seek thy honor and glory, and study to preserve 
thy people committed to his charge, in peace, happi- 
ness, and true religion. Bless all who are m author- 
ity under him. Instruct his counsellors, and teach 
his senators wisdom. Prosper all their consultations 
to the advancement of thy glory, the good of thy 
church, the safety, honor, and welfare of our country. 
Put away from us all murmurings and discontent ; all 
revilings and evil- speakings towards the rulers of thy 
people ; and teach us to bear with their infirmities, 
and remember that they are but men. 

Both now and evermore vouchsafe to hear us, for 
the sake of Him who died for us and rose again, and 
liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, 
ever one God, world without end. Amen. 



96 



PRAYER FOR OUR SOLDIERS. 

O Lord God of hosts, to whom victory belongeth, 
the protector of all who trust in thee, we commend 
to thy tender care and sure protection, those thy 
servants who have gone forth at the call of their 
country to defend its government, and to protect thy 
people in their property and homes. Let thy fatherly 
hand, we beseech thee, be over them ; let thy Holy 
Spirit be with them ; let thy good angels have charge 
over them ; with thy loving kindness defend them 
as with a shield ; sustain them with that glorious 
power by which alone thy servants can have victory 
in suffering and death, and bring them out of their 
peril in safety, with hearts grateful to thee for all thy 
mercies. Look down, we beseech thee, with the eye 
of thy mercy upon all our sick and wounded, on all 
who are in prison, captivity, and bondage. Break 
the chains of oppression and let the oppressed go 
free everywhere, and hasten the time when all shall 
be delivered from the bondage of corruption into 
the glorious liberty of the children of God. 

Finally, we beseech thee to grant that so long as 
we hear of wars, and rumors of wars, and distress 
of nations, with perplexity, thou wouldest cause the 
wrath of man to praise thee. Overrule all changes 
in the kingdoms of the earth to the glory of thy 
name and the success of thy gospel, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy 
Ghost, be equal honor, adoration, and praise, now 
and evermore. Amen. 



LETTER FROM ADMIRAL DAHLGREN. 



United States Flagship Philadelphia, ) 
Charleston Eoads, July 24, 1864. ) 

I have patiently and sorrowfully awaited the 
hour when I should be able to vindicate fully the 
memory of my gaUant son, Col. Ulric Dahlgren, 
and lay bare to the world the atrocious imposture of 
those who, not content with abusing and defacing 
the remains of the noble boy, have knowingly and 
persistently endeavored to blemish his spotless name 
by a forged lie. 

That hour has at last come. I have before me 
a photoiitho copy of the document which the inhu- 
man traitors at Richmond pretend was found upon 
the body of my son after he had been basely assas- 
sinated by their chivalry, at midnight, and who, on 
the pretext that this paper disclosed an intent to 
take the lives of the arch rebel and his counsellors, 
and to destroy Richmond, have not hesitated to 
commit and commend the most shocking barbarities 
on the remains of the young patriot, and to exult 
like dastards over his sad fate. 

I can now affirm that the document is a forgery 
— a barefaced, atrocious forgery — so palpable that 



100 

the wickedness of the act is only equalled by the 
recklessness with which it has been perpetrated and 
adhered to, for the miserable catifFs did not confine 
themselves to the general terms of a mere allegation, 
but published the paper in all the precision of a 
photographic fac simile, as if not to leave a doubt 
or cavil. I felt from the first just as if I knew the 
fact that my son never wrote that paper, — that it 
was a forgery; but I refrained from giving utter- 
ance to that faith until I had seen a sample of the 
infamous counterfeit, and having seen it, could say, 
as I say now, that a more fiendish he never was 
invented. 

****** 

It is difficult to imagine such utter baseness in 
any but the most abandoned felons, and yet it is 
only of a piece with the entire conduct of the chiv- 
alry, leaders and followers, in all the events that 
preceded and accompanied the untimely death of 
Colonel Dahlgren. The forged he was but the seal 
to deeds of inhumanity and horror that no one 
could enact or sanction unless his nature were 
debased to a level with that of the brute. 

It is well known that the cruel usage practiced on 
the Union soldiers who were imprisoned at Rich- 
mond had become a theme at the North, and that 
their release from slow and horrid death was the 
object of the expedition. My son had just returned 



101 



from a visit to me off Charleston when he learned of 
the project. Every one was aware that he was in 
no condition to take the field just then ; for he had 
lost a leg by a wound received in a charge through 
Hagerstown, pending the battle of Gettysburg, and 
the consequent illness nearly cost him his life. The 
vigor of his frame had carried him through the 
crisis, but the wound was not perfectly healed ; he 
was still weak, and could only move on crutches. 

No sooner was he apprised of what was contem- 
plated, than he sought to join the enterprise, in 
remembrance of comrades pining in loathsome dun- 
geons, — of men with whom he had ridden side by 
side amid the deadly conflict, — and a strong con- 
viction of their sufferings animating every pulse of 
his gallant heart, he felt that duty called him there, 
and the reluctant consent of the authorities was at 
last yielded to his earnest entreaties. 

It is not my purpose here to narrate the whole 
course of this noble enterprise ; that will be the duty 
of a future day ; but no one had seen Colonel Dahl- 
gren in his full vigor sit his charger more gracefully 
or better endure the incessant and multiplied hard- 
ships of that ride, by day and by night, in shine and 
storm. 

The failure of his column to connect with that 
of General Kilpatrick led to the failure of the expe- 



102 

dition and the death of as noble a soldier as ever 
gave life to a great cause. 

****** 

The gallant youth fell, pierced by many balls, 
at the head of his men, and even while his brave 
spirit lingered about its shattered tenement, the 
chivalry began to strip off his clothing. Whether 
the detestable purpose was accomplished before he 
was dead, I know not, nor whether the infamous 
wretches paused to make sure that life was extinct 
before they severed a finger from his hand in order 
• to secure a ring given by' a departed sister, and 
dearly prized by the heart that is now as still as her 
own. 

It was not until daylight disclosed the^ utter 
helplessness of the survivors that the victors took 
heart of grace and consummated their brave deed 
by marching the wearied and famished troopers 
along the road, regardless of the fact that this led 
them by the body of their young chief, just as it 
lay, stripped and covered with mud, but yet hon- 
ored by the sad tokens which it exhibited of love 
and loyalty to the cause of his country. The ab- 
sent limb told of recent battle-fields, and the breath- 
less body gave assurance that the last sacrifice had 
been made. The young life, rich in promise, had 
been laid do vvn, and thus was redeemed the solemn 
oath of fealty to the Union. 



103 

No respect for the well-known gallantry of their 
victim, no feeling for his extreme youth, entered 
into the thoughts of these atrocious ruffians, and 
only when sated with the mournful sight were the 
relics of the noble dead permitted such sepulture as 
a hasty grave could afford. 

Be it remembered that to this time nothing was 
known of the forged document. But presently it 
came to the upper chivalry of Richmond that one 
of the leaders of the expedition had fallen. Fren- 
zied with terror at the possible consequences of the 
success of the undertaking — for they had every 
reason to dread that the vengeance of the released 
prisoners would respect no person — they sought a 
pretext for the meditated villainy on the body of 
Colonel Dahlgren hi a forgery which they thought 
would extenuate all disregard of every dictate of 
manhood and humanity. 

So they forged the lie, and gave it currency in 
all the minuteness of a seeming fae simile, while the 
original counterfeit was so recklessly executed that 
the shameful deceit could not fail to be apparent to 
any one having the least knowledge of Colonel 
Dahlgren's handwriting. 

So the remains of the heroic dead were torn from 
the grave, conveyed to Richmond, and there exposed 
to the taunts and gaze of a mob ; then hurried away 
in the obscurity of the night, to some nameless spot, 



104 

whence it was intended they should never be recov- 
ered. 

There was an ingenuity in the contrived villainy 
from which the mind recoils with horror. 

Contrast the high and holy purpose of the Union 
soldier — his devotion to it, even to death ; his calm, 
undaunted courage, graced by every milder virtue ; 
his kindly hospitality to the captive rebel officer, so 
illy requitted : contrast these with the craven cow- 
ardice of the ruffians who beset him and did mid- 
night murder, their brutal desecration of his body, 
and worse than these, the crimes of the higher chiv- 
alry who made war upon the dead as such only 
could wage. Contrast these, and say if it were not 
happier to die as did Ulric Dahlgren — so true, so 
gentle and so brave — than to live as those do who, 
to destroy his fair name, have justified and exulted 
in his assassination and forged a lie, to their eternal 
infamy. 

****** 

He had not completed the first year of his man- 
hood when he was so basely assassinated; yet by 
his bravery and devotion on many a battle-field he 
had won the high but well- deserved rank of Colonel 
of cavalry. That commission was transmitted with 
the following letter : 



105 

Washington, July 24, 1863. 
Dear Sir : Enclosed you have a commission for 
colonel, without having passed through the inter- 
mediate grade of major. Tour gallant and meri- 
torious service has, I think, entitled you to this 
distinction, although it is a departure from general 
usage, which is only justified by distinguished merit 
such as yours. I hope you may speedily recover, 
and it will rejoice me to be the instrument of your 
further advancement in the service. 

"With great regard, I am yours, truly, 

Edwin M. Stanton. 
Colonel Ulric Dahlgren. 

He was tall, well built and graceful ; his frame* 
gave every promise of future strength, but as yet 
lacked the development of the matured man, and 
was divested of all spare flesh by a life of constant 
activity in the saddle. 

To the casual observer, he appeared like a very 
young and -a very diffident man — gentle and unob- 
trusive, a moderate talker, and always of pleasant 
mood. But beneath lay a character of the firmest 
mould, a constancy of purpose never to be diverted 
from its object, courage that was never disturbed by 
any danger, impulses of the purest nature habitually 
in exercise, producing a course of life unblemished 
by the least meanness — a good son, a warm friend, 



106 

dutiful alike to God and man. I can now look back 
over the -whole of his young life, and declare that in 
no instance did he ever fail in the most respectful 
obedience to my least wish. A more perfect and 
lovely character I cannot conceive. 

****** 

His courage was not of that rampant character 
so troublesome to friend as well as to foe, but came 
forth instantly at the first sign of danger. To 
these qualities he added a deep sense of religious 
obligation, having been carefully trained by a de- 
parted mother to the church and the Sunday school. 
But in this, as in many other respects, he was not 
demonstrative. When apparently at the verge of 
death from a wound, and reminded of the danger, 
he smiled, and said that he had never gone into 
battle without asking forgiveness of his sins and 
commending his soul to his Maker. And so passed 
away this bright young life, so radient in promise. 
Nor is it only a father's love and affection that 
prompts such praise, as the many who knew him 
will confirm. 

****** 

The last letter that he ever wrote was to myself. 
It was from camp, just before putting foot in stirrup, 
and about to set out on the last of a brilliant and 
eventful career. He directed that it should only be 
given to me in the event of his not returning. He 



107 



speaks of the enterprise as • glorious, and that he 
would be ashamed to show his face again if he had 
failed to go in it.' He expressed himself as fully 
sensible of the danger, and concludes thus : ' If we 
do not return, there is no better place to give up the 
ghost.' 

Such was the brave and generous spirit whose 
light has been so early quenched forever. That of 
itself might have sufficed to sate the vengeance even 
of traitors. The shocking cruelty that has been 
exhibited to his inanimate body, and the perpetra- 
tion of a forgery to justify it, will, in the end, recoil 
on the infamous ruffians. 

To the gallant young soldier it has been as nothing. 
He had passed away to his final account, leaving be- 
hind him a name far beyond the reach of the chivalry. 
There are those left, however, whose pride and pleas- 
ure it will be to vindicate his fair fame, and he will 
be remembered as a young patriot of spotless life and 
purest purpose ; honest, true, and gentle, dutiful to 
every obligation, unselfish and generous to a fault ; 
an undaunted soldier of the Union, who never struck 
a blow at an unarmed enemy, but carefully and 
kindly respected the claims of defenceless women 
and children ; an accomplished gentleman, a sincere 
Christian, a faithful comrade, who, not recovered 
from the almost fatal illness consequent on losing 
a limb in battle, went forth to brave every hardship 



108 

in the hope of aiding in the release of our captive 
soldiers from the dungeons of a merciless enemy, 
who for this treated his dead body with savage feroc- 
ity, and hesitated not to forge his name. 

Peace to his ashes wherever they rest ; the laurels 
on the young and fair brow of Ulric Dahlgren will 
never fade while there are true men and women in 
the land to keep them green. 

JNO. A. DAHLGREN, 

Bear Admiral, commanding United States South Atlan- 
tic Blockading Squadron. 



Mudge & Son, Printers, 34 School 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



009 801 533 4 



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Psalms xx. 5. 




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